Auction Recap: Mecum’s 2015 Kissimmee sale

Just as things were calming down from Scottsdale, Mecum Auctions prepared yet another seemingly endless stream of automobiles for its sale at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Fla. Mecum had a real knockout of a sale here in 2013 with $66,629,249 in total sales, up 14% from 2012. 2014 saw a 10% swing in the wrong direction with $60,178,055, but 2015’s numbers were right back up there with $66,432,589. 1,666 lots sold out of 2,513 offered for a 66% sell-through rate.

It’s not exactly breaking news that the collector car market and especially the auction market have seen a monumental expansion in recent years, but it is at least interesting to note that just 10 years ago this was a $5.3 million sale with less than 300 cars on offer.

The top seller in Kissimmee this year, just shy of seven figures at $990,000, was a 1969 Dodge Daytona from the Wellborn Musclecar Museum that not only had the desirable combination of 426 Hemi and four-speed, but also showed just 6,500 actual miles and was in prime condition. Another barely used piece of Dodge muscle, a 1971 Hemi Challenger R/T, took the No. 2 spot at $704,000. Sold by its original owner, the car had just 1,871 miles on it.

Other top sales included a 427-powered Yenko Nova at $418,000 and a low-mileage 1989 Lamborghini Countach at $385,000, but one of the more exciting moments of the entire 10-day sale was when musician Jerry Lee Lewis’s 1959 Harley-Davidson crossed the block. The building was about as crowded as it had been all week, and after bidding quickly reached $300,000, Lewis himself made an appearance at the piano and belted out a few lines from “Great Balls of Fire” before the hammer finally fell at $350,000. Rounding out the top 10 was a 2006 Ford GT that took $330,000. Mecum had no fewer than seven GTs in Kissimmee this year, and although five of them didn’t sell, they all hammered at well above $200,000.